A varient to stop a players death... [Archive] - Wizards Community

A varient to stop a players death... [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DerTollUdo
01-29-07, 09:07 PM recently i was running a campaign in which there were two players that worked themselves into a position that they wanted to fight. One of these characters was a simple Gnome Spirit Shaman 5/Stormlord 1, while the other was a horrible blend of races that shouldnt be combined, yet he somehow found the rules to do so with no LA, He was a Half Ogre(template?), Half Changling(base), Unseelie Fey(template) (Dragon Compendium) Fighter 2/Blade Dancer2 (dragon compendium)/XX 1/Meldshaper1. The XX stands for another class that i cant remember but it granted him a +1Bab and a bonus feat.
So, here is the situation that came up:
The Spirit Shaman(Seebo) was walking through a swamp with detect Spirits on, and saw the freak(forgot the character name) attacking another freak, and, as a means to stop there quarral and see if he could resolve it, activated Chastise Spirits.

This was allowed because in the sidebar it says that all fey are spirits, and with the Unseelie Fey template i believed that he was a fey. After two rounds Seebo had managed to completely kill the Freak, which did strike him back in combat to little effect, using the Chastise Spirits ability. Then, since time was almost out, we called it over for the day. Then the freak remembers that there was something in Savage Species that says he wasnt a fey but instead a shapechanger. This thing was the pyramid of templates, i think. it is used to determine what you type is when having multiple templates, since it had a line in there about how if you have multiple templates some of them take precidence over the others and thus dont let your type change, but then the thing gives an example of an elemental recieving the Half-Dragon Template, and saying that the elemental is still an elemetal since it is higher on the pyramid.
Now the freak, to my knowlege, had only one template-Unseelie fey, but then he said that he was instead a giant(ogre blood from being half ogre) or shapechanger because they are higher on the pyramid.

My questions are: which was it meant to be interpreted--this only applies to multiple templates, Or this applies to all creatures and their types no matter if they have 1 template or more?
And also, does half-ogre count as a template, or is it just like half in which it doesnt mean too much, and in that case is he a fey or a giant/shapechanger(both of which are higher on the pyramid than the fey)?
I ask these questions because they will either save his life or have him make another character.
Sorry for the long post,but i know that more details will help clear the problem faster.
Regular_K
01-29-07, 10:59 PM First off Half-Ogre is not a template, and has a LA +1, so he couldn't be half-orge, half-shapechanger, half-fey. First off, too many halves, second off, you can only have one (1) birth template, and one (1) gained template, but he has two (2) birth ones, one of which isn't a real template.

My suggestion is don't allow books you havn't read, or havn't read the material in question.

I would say kill the character because the player cheated. He cheated big time.
The_Puppetmaster
01-29-07, 11:03 PM A Half-Ogre, Half Changling, Half Fey? Just rule that everyone else in the party gets 150% exp, since this player is player 1.5 characters. :D

lol... roll up a new sheet.
Thomar_of_Uointer
01-30-07, 12:47 AM If you can't understand your player's character, why the heck did you let him play it?

Okay, due to shapechanger becoming a subtype in 3.5 (Savage Species is 3.0)...

Half-ogre is a race. He can't be both a changeling and a half-ogre unless you make a template out of either. Either way, he's a giant with the shapechanger subtype. Then, he has the unseelie fey template, which I can imagine makes him a Fey with the Shapechanger and Augmented Giant subtypes. He's a fey.

Of course, that assumes that you're using 3.5 edition rules. If you're using 3.0, then go get Savage Species and use whatever it says in there.

I would recommend you kill his character and make him play human until he's able to get you to understand his character. Or force him to play a mongrelfolk.
_SIN_
01-30-07, 01:17 AM He's not Giant, changeling, fey or ogre. He's a cheat. Plain and simple. Sounds like he's a bit of a power-gamer to me. Next time, stick to core. Make a character that has character, not disgusting stats and a dozen innate abilities. Failing that, I say lynch the rascle!

One of my fav's is a dwarf wizard. Plain and simple. He's short, he's dirty, he extreeeeeemly hairy, to the point of verging on feral. He's got a Hairy Spider familiar who resides in his beard. Nothing too abstract, no super character, but a fun and memorable one!!
mkill
01-30-07, 01:26 AM I ask these questions because they will either save his life or have him make another character.
Sorry for the long post,but i know that more details will help clear the problem faster.

Just declare that damn char dead, and be glad another player got you rid of him. Next, learn to disallow such characters. You're the DM, you have the right to veto any crap your players could come up with and you should exercise that.
CharlieRock
01-30-07, 01:50 AM I just wanted to kill the character after reading it's freaky description. Bonus xp for the gnome for whupping ,like, 1 1/2 enemies in one. :cool:
DerTollUdo
01-30-07, 06:30 PM well, i appreciate all the input. I didnt know that SS was 3.0 otherwise i wouldnt allow it since we do play only 3.5. And on a second note, not to defend him just to explain how this one slipped past me, he said he found the rules stating that if a creature was a half something it could be a half something else...now that i think about it though...if that were true then why would the half elf exist instead of just having a varient stating that half things could exist? I was never really on the side of letting him live, but i just wanted to give him at least a fair trial before his execution.

Half-ogre is a race. He can't be both a changeling and a half-ogre unless you make a template out of either. Either way, he's a giant with the shapechanger subtype. Then, he has the unseelie fey template, which I can imagine makes him a Fey with the Shapechanger and Augmented Giant subtypes. He's a fey.

i believe i shall use this as my evidence to condem him, however i would like to know where you got this so that i may learn it and teach him.
Thomar_of_Uointer
01-31-07, 01:47 AM i believe i shall use this as my evidence to condem him, however i would like to know where you got this so that i may learn it and teach him.

Okay, first off he has a race. If he's a changeling, that makes him a humanoid (shapechanger), and the half-ogre template or unseelie template will supercede humanoid, leaving the other one to supercede that one.
On the other hand, if half-ogre is a race (I actually don't know on this one, sorry!) and you've made a custom homebrewed changeling template (if you had figured this out with him there, this is where you should have taken SS and smacked the player over the head with it), that merely adds the shapechanger subtype and then unseelie comes in and changes the main type to fey.
Depends on what order you apply them in, as all templates simply state "change the creature's type to ______", I don't really think that Savage Species holds water saying that some types supercede others, things get messy when you add more than one template and the Level Adjustment system's integrity starts to break down due to stacking and overlapping abilities.

And force him to play a core race for his next character. Don't let him use anything outside of the PHB classes either, and don't even think of letting him use any noncore feats. Then, when he's totally done, let him know you'll let him change a few things, but only one thing at a time and always with the original source on hand so that you can give each and every thing he adds a "yes" or "no". I've had players like this, just tell them no a few times and they'll get back to actually playing the game.

Edit: Oh, right. Augmented is a subtype that gets added to a creature whose type changes. Augmented creatures have the same body type and traits as their original type, but use the abilities and features of their new type. It's kind of a placeholder subtype to help you keep track of things, and it only shows up once in the MM that I know of.
Archmage Atrus
01-31-07, 07:54 AM Honestly, Savage Species was probably the worst book that WotC came out with... ever. It had absolutely no insights that a DM with half a brain couldn't figure out by reading the first chapter of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the "LA formula" they prescribe is a ****ing joke.

I just had a player ask me if I was disinclined to allow him to play a half-Ogre in our next Planescape campaign.

I merely pointed to the list of allowed material and said "Do you see that crap in any of the books I allowed?" (Which were already plentiful - the Completes, Psionics, Tome of Magic, the Races of..., Incarnum, teh Cores, PHB II, all of the MMs...) and he was forced to turn away with his tail between his legs, his crotch thoroughly kicked.
Thomar_of_Uointer
01-31-07, 11:44 AM Honestly, Savage Species was probably the worst book that WotC came out with... ever. It had absolutely no insights that a DM with half a brain couldn't figure out by reading the first chapter of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the "LA formula" they prescribe is a ****ing joke.

I just had a player ask me if I was disinclined to allow him to play a half-Ogre in our next Planescape campaign.

I merely pointed to the list of allowed material and said "Do you see that crap in any of the books I allowed?" (Which were already plentiful - the Completes, Psionics, Tome of Magic, the Races of..., Incarnum, teh Cores, PHB II, all of the MMs...) and he was forced to turn away with his tail between his legs, his crotch thoroughly kicked.

What about monster progressions?
Archmage Atrus
01-31-07, 12:28 PM What about monster progressions?

In my opinion? A horrible and pointless idea by which you give PCs the ability to play extremely weak characters that only continue to get weaker only to satisfy an idiotic desire to play an "off beat" race in a low level game.
Burgundy Lotus
01-31-07, 06:54 PM In my opinion? A horrible and pointless idea by which you give PCs the ability to play extremely weak characters that only continue to get weaker only to satisfy an idiotic desire to play an "off beat" race in a low level game.

That's why I like them, give the player something they wanted that isn't over powered for a change.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DerTollUdo 01-29-07, 09:07 PM	recently i was running a campaign in which there were two players that worked themselves into a position that they wanted to fight. One of these characters was a simple Gnome Spirit Shaman 5/Stormlord 1, while the other was a horrible blend of races that shouldnt be combined, yet he somehow found the rules to do so with no LA, He was a Half Ogre(template?), Half Changling(base), Unseelie Fey(template) (Dragon Compendium) Fighter 2/Blade Dancer2 (dragon compendium)/XX 1/Meldshaper1. The XX stands for another class that i cant remember but it granted him a +1Bab and a bonus feat. So, here is the situation that came up: The Spirit Shaman(Seebo) was walking through a swamp with detect Spirits on, and saw the freak(forgot the character name) attacking another freak, and, as a means to stop there quarral and see if he could resolve it, activated Chastise Spirits. This was allowed because in the sidebar it says that all fey are spirits, and with the Unseelie Fey template i believed that he was a fey. After two rounds Seebo had managed to completely kill the Freak, which did strike him back in combat to little effect, using the Chastise Spirits ability. Then, since time was almost out, we called it over for the day. Then the freak remembers that there was something in Savage Species that says he wasnt a fey but instead a shapechanger. This thing was the pyramid of templates, i think. it is used to determine what you type is when having multiple templates, since it had a line in there about how if you have multiple templates some of them take precidence over the others and thus dont let your type change, but then the thing gives an example of an elemental recieving the Half-Dragon Template, and saying that the elemental is still an elemetal since it is higher on the pyramid. Now the freak, to my knowlege, had only one template-Unseelie fey, but then he said that he was instead a giant(ogre blood from being half ogre) or shapechanger because they are higher on the pyramid. My questions are: which was it meant to be interpreted--this only applies to multiple templates, Or this applies to all creatures and their types no matter if they have 1 template or more? And also, does half-ogre count as a template, or is it just like half in which it doesnt mean too much, and in that case is he a fey or a giant/shapechanger(both of which are higher on the pyramid than the fey)? I ask these questions because they will either save his life or have him make another character. Sorry for the long post,but i know that more details will help clear the problem faster.
Regular_K 01-29-07, 10:59 PM	First off Half-Ogre is not a template, and has a LA +1, so he couldn't be half-orge, half-shapechanger, half-fey. First off, too many halves, second off, you can only have one (1) birth template, and one (1) gained template, but he has two (2) birth ones, one of which isn't a real template. My suggestion is don't allow books you havn't read, or havn't read the material in question. I would say kill the character because the player cheated. He cheated big time.
The_Puppetmaster 01-29-07, 11:03 PM	A Half-Ogre, Half Changling, Half Fey? Just rule that everyone else in the party gets 150% exp, since this player is player 1.5 characters. :D lol... roll up a new sheet.
Thomar_of_Uointer 01-30-07, 12:47 AM	If you can't understand your player's character, why the heck did you let him play it? Okay, due to shapechanger becoming a subtype in 3.5 (Savage Species is 3.0)... Half-ogre is a race. He can't be both a changeling and a half-ogre unless you make a template out of either. Either way, he's a giant with the shapechanger subtype. Then, he has the unseelie fey template, which I can imagine makes him a Fey with the Shapechanger and Augmented Giant subtypes. He's a fey. Of course, that assumes that you're using 3.5 edition rules. If you're using 3.0, then go get Savage Species and use whatever it says in there. I would recommend you kill his character and make him play human until he's able to get you to understand his character. Or force him to play a mongrelfolk.
_SIN_ 01-30-07, 01:17 AM	He's not Giant, changeling, fey or ogre. He's a cheat. Plain and simple. Sounds like he's a bit of a power-gamer to me. Next time, stick to core. Make a character that has character, not disgusting stats and a dozen innate abilities. Failing that, I say lynch the rascle! One of my fav's is a dwarf wizard. Plain and simple. He's short, he's dirty, he extreeeeeemly hairy, to the point of verging on feral. He's got a Hairy Spider familiar who resides in his beard. Nothing too abstract, no super character, but a fun and memorable one!!
mkill 01-30-07, 01:26 AM	I ask these questions because they will either save his life or have him make another character. Sorry for the long post,but i know that more details will help clear the problem faster. Just declare that damn char dead, and be glad another player got you rid of him. Next, learn to disallow such characters. You're the DM, you have the right to veto any crap your players could come up with and you should exercise that.
CharlieRock 01-30-07, 01:50 AM	I just wanted to kill the character after reading it's freaky description. Bonus xp for the gnome for whupping ,like, 1 1/2 enemies in one. :cool:
DerTollUdo 01-30-07, 06:30 PM	well, i appreciate all the input. I didnt know that SS was 3.0 otherwise i wouldnt allow it since we do play only 3.5. And on a second note, not to defend him just to explain how this one slipped past me, he said he found the rules stating that if a creature was a half something it could be a half something else...now that i think about it though...if that were true then why would the half elf exist instead of just having a varient stating that half things could exist? I was never really on the side of letting him live, but i just wanted to give him at least a fair trial before his execution. Half-ogre is a race. He can't be both a changeling and a half-ogre unless you make a template out of either. Either way, he's a giant with the shapechanger subtype. Then, he has the unseelie fey template, which I can imagine makes him a Fey with the Shapechanger and Augmented Giant subtypes. He's a fey. i believe i shall use this as my evidence to condem him, however i would like to know where you got this so that i may learn it and teach him.
Thomar_of_Uointer 01-31-07, 01:47 AM	i believe i shall use this as my evidence to condem him, however i would like to know where you got this so that i may learn it and teach him. Okay, first off he has a race. If he's a changeling, that makes him a humanoid (shapechanger), and the half-ogre template or unseelie template will supercede humanoid, leaving the other one to supercede that one. On the other hand, if half-ogre is a race (I actually don't know on this one, sorry!) and you've made a custom homebrewed changeling template (if you had figured this out with him there, this is where you should have taken SS and smacked the player over the head with it), that merely adds the shapechanger subtype and then unseelie comes in and changes the main type to fey. Depends on what order you apply them in, as all templates simply state "change the creature's type to ______", I don't really think that Savage Species holds water saying that some types supercede others, things get messy when you add more than one template and the Level Adjustment system's integrity starts to break down due to stacking and overlapping abilities. And force him to play a core race for his next character. Don't let him use anything outside of the PHB classes either, and don't even think of letting him use any noncore feats. Then, when he's totally done, let him know you'll let him change a few things, but only one thing at a time and always with the original source on hand so that you can give each and every thing he adds a "yes" or "no". I've had players like this, just tell them no a few times and they'll get back to actually playing the game. Edit: Oh, right. Augmented is a subtype that gets added to a creature whose type changes. Augmented creatures have the same body type and traits as their original type, but use the abilities and features of their new type. It's kind of a placeholder subtype to help you keep track of things, and it only shows up once in the MM that I know of.
Archmage Atrus 01-31-07, 07:54 AM	Honestly, Savage Species was probably the worst book that WotC came out with... ever. It had absolutely no insights that a DM with half a brain couldn't figure out by reading the first chapter of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the "LA formula" they prescribe is a ****ing joke. I just had a player ask me if I was disinclined to allow him to play a half-Ogre in our next Planescape campaign. I merely pointed to the list of allowed material and said "Do you see that crap in any of the books I allowed?" (Which were already plentiful - the Completes, Psionics, Tome of Magic, the Races of..., Incarnum, teh Cores, PHB II, all of the MMs...) and he was forced to turn away with his tail between his legs, his crotch thoroughly kicked.
Thomar_of_Uointer 01-31-07, 11:44 AM	Honestly, Savage Species was probably the worst book that WotC came out with... ever. It had absolutely no insights that a DM with half a brain couldn't figure out by reading the first chapter of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the "LA formula" they prescribe is a ****ing joke. I just had a player ask me if I was disinclined to allow him to play a half-Ogre in our next Planescape campaign. I merely pointed to the list of allowed material and said "Do you see that crap in any of the books I allowed?" (Which were already plentiful - the Completes, Psionics, Tome of Magic, the Races of..., Incarnum, teh Cores, PHB II, all of the MMs...) and he was forced to turn away with his tail between his legs, his crotch thoroughly kicked. What about monster progressions?
Archmage Atrus 01-31-07, 12:28 PM	What about monster progressions? In my opinion? A horrible and pointless idea by which you give PCs the ability to play extremely weak characters that only continue to get weaker only to satisfy an idiotic desire to play an "off beat" race in a low level game.
Burgundy Lotus 01-31-07, 06:54 PM	In my opinion? A horrible and pointless idea by which you give PCs the ability to play extremely weak characters that only continue to get weaker only to satisfy an idiotic desire to play an "off beat" race in a low level game. That's why I like them, give the player something they wanted that isn't over powered for a change.